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Well, I guess for everything, but more specifically, Monks. Wow, they have alot of good abilities. (From the looks of it.) I've had like three people as monks for awhile, but I'm too paranoid to use my JP yet. What abilities are essential to learn first for Monks?

I guess other things as well, if you can think of any.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

If you have 1500 JP, you might as well learn Hamedo. Counter and Move HP-UP are the first abilties that I learn. I don't worry about Martial Arts unless I'm leveling up other jobs are if I want a powerful, un-armed warrior with Punch Arts. In no particular order, it'd be best to master the entire Punch Arts skill set so you have a variety of powerful attacks in addition to status restoration, HP/MP healing, and the capability of reviving someone whom you don't want dead. Earth Slash, Secret Fist, and Wave Fist are must-haves for the attack-dealing portion of Punch Arts.

This post has been edited by FabulousFreebird on 12th June 2006 23:43

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"Thought I was dead, eh? Not until I fulfill my dream!"
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"Peace is but a shadow of death."
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As for me, the first ability I ever learn for every Monk is Chakra. Great restorative move, it also replenishes MP for my mages, which means you don't ever have to worry about saving your spells.

Next depends on how much JP I have after that : usually it's Wave Fist then Revive, then it can varry from Earth Slash to Counter to Repeated Fists.

With the JP gained by my mages while the other characters are busy leveling up as Monk, I always save up 500 JPs to make them learn HP Restore, which is quite invaluable in early and middle chapters.

As for other things like you mentioned in the last part of your post, I can't tell if you're speaking about other classes. Since I have a moment on my hand (for a change...) , I'll do a breakdown on what I learn first for each class.

Squire : Get JP Up, Move +1, Throw Stone and Accumulate.
Chemist : Move Find Item. I don't use Chemists so I don't care about the rest.
Knight : Break Speed, Break Magic and Equip Armor.
Archer : low level Charge followed by Speed Save.
Priest : Cure 1, Cure 2, Raise 1, Protect and Shell.
Wizard : level 1 spells, level 2 spells, Flare, level 3 spells.
Thief : Move +2, every steal skill for one character.
Time Mage : Haste, Don't Move, Demi 2.
Oracle : Paralyze, Sleep.
Summoner : Moogle, Shiva, Ramuh, Titan, Cyclops.
Mediator : Invitation, Pray Faith.
Lancer : Level Jump 9, Vertical Jump 9.
Ninja : Suhriken, Two Swords, Abandon.
Samourai : Koutetsu, Blade Grasp, Two Hands.

Ah, thanks everyone.

I only gave Ramza Hamedo, and wow, it's kinda cheap. They forgot 'and the opponent doesn't get to attack. It's like Counterattack, only better'. Oh well, I'm not complaining.

I think everyone has Accumulate, or in Ramza's case, Yell.

I think both White Mages have Item/Throw Item/Move Find Item so they can heal us. (Since I saved up so much JP for Holy only to not be able to use it until now...)

Ramza has Hamedo, and one monk is an 'attack' monk, with Secret Fist and other techniques, while the other is a 'support' monk, with Chakra, Revive, etc. But I'll make sure to give them all Hamedo eventually.

*prints*

Edit: Yes, I was talking about other classes. Thank you! Although not many of those are available yet.

This post has been edited by Zeromus_X on 5th June 2006 18:46

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

I actually think Counter is better than Hamedo. Hamedo only works on a few standard attacks, while Counter will also counter a bunch of special attacks (usually by monsters). But yeah, against human opponenets Hamedo might better, but Counter is much more versatile.

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this is a blog mostly about comics and videogames
END SPOILER

Hm, I'm guessing you fight more 'non-human' opponents later in the story. :/ But for now, I'll use it against humans then. (No shortage of them.)

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

I would pretty much second everyone else's input, but I would like to stress that with a knight, for me anyway, equip armor is an important skill. I usually use it to protect my weaker mages at the expense of MP while I develop them. Then after that it's more of a calculator thing. I like to have one character devoted to calculator and one to monk/thief or ninja/thief the rest are a free form.

For monk I find that counter, hamedo, revive, chakra and wave fist work wonders. On my female monk I usually learn earth slash, repeted fist and the support skills (reaction, move all of em) and dedicate her to eviscerating monsters with a counter reaction and high evade stats(mantles speed boosting equipment).

This post has been edited by Nytecrawla on 5th June 2006 19:48

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Actually, I did get all my three 'warrior' characters to learn 'equip armor' when they mastered Knight class, and I set them with it as Monks. Don't know if that's a good thing or not though.

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OSonic Rave
/ \Last Arcanum
[ ]Strike Raid
XRagnarok

Chakra is definitely the first ability I learn as a Monk. Then Revive, Counter, and Wave Fist

I always start any character out with Gained JP UP, from the Squire
class. It doesn't seem like much, but this simple ability adds 50% more JP
per turn, which in turn cuts the overall time of collecting enough JP for any
cost by 33%--think ten minutes saved per thirty-minute session*. Over time,
all this results in characters achieving their individual class mastery goals in
only two-thirds normal time: ie, by level66 your characters could be as
powerful as characters that are stuck at level99. It also means you can learn
more classes than you normally would. This means losing the Support slot
while your characters are levelling, but trust me, it's well worth it. If you
encounter battles when you feel you need something else in that slot (such
as Equip Armor for HP bonuses or Half Of MP for Mages/
Wizards/Priests), you can always flipflop the options as need be.

The next crucial thing to learn is something that guarantees a JP productive
turn every active turn. A turn where all one does is move and
wait is a waste; in the very least, you want something that will allow the
character to gain even a little JP by attacking allied units, if necessary.
For a Monk, Chakra seems the best choice--except that Chakra
gives you no JP gain per turn (this would drastically alter game balance if
the Monk could forever heal and gain JP). Instead, I would go with
Wave Fist. This supplies you with a limited ranged attack which you
can use on friend and foe alike, meaning the Monk will almost always have
some way to collect JP per turn.

This principle works with all classes, really: learn the abilities that will earn
you the most JP, every turn. Knights need Basic Skills so that they can
throw rocks at allies and foes until they've closed the distance gap and can
really bring punishment to their targets (without Basic Skills, they're
just too powerful to allow to hit your own allies indiscriminately). The ability
to Accumulate is a cheap way to collect JP for any class, especially
Calculators (since ideally, you want them far away from battle lines). And
if this means swapping out Gained JP UP for Equip Bow, by all means do it:
it's better for a character to make a little JP each round, than no JP at all.
When leveling, it's crucial that each turn be productive, so you're not waiting
as long for needed abilities. That means taking charge of who and what they're
doing, essentially micromanaging the team so they level as fast as possible.

As for a Monk, I'd progress through: Wave Fist, Spin Fist,
Earth Slash (for maximum-distance damage), Chakra (as necessary;
for every time a Monk heals themselves, a Chemist or Priest misses a chance
to heal them, and gain JP in doing so), and all others. The same concern about
Priests and Chemists missing opportunities for JP growth also applies to the
abilities of Stigma Magic (a missed Antidote et al or Esuna opportunity) or
Revive (although Revive is crucial in the early game; beware the limitations
imposed by uneven ground; otherwise, this is a PhoenixDown or Raise/Raise2
chance).

Good luck leveling, and I hope you have fun.

* This is approximate. In reality, for every twenty minutes of JP levelling with
Gained JP UP, you get ten 'free' minutes in terms of recalculated JP gain.

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Putting the A's in W lm rt: A11smart, Jobclass: Retailer.

2 swords
Move hp up
Hp restore
Hamedo counter
Auto potion

Probably a bit late for my opinion to matter, but I'll say it anyway.

I'd go for Wave Fist first. It's fairly cheap, and gives your Monk some range. If you are heavy on mages and are having them run out of MP then Chakra is a viable choice. One annoying thing about Chakra and Revive is that it has a Vertical Tolerance of 0, meaning you have to be on equal ground as your target. This makes it rather unreliable if you want this character to be a really adaptable healer. Earth Slash is great, I'd suggest you pick that up as soon as possible. If you give your party Earth Clothes then you can heal with this too.

As for other classes...


Squire : Gained JP Up, Throw Stone (it's cheap enough), Accumulate
Chemist : Phoenix Down, Potion
Knight : Speed Break, Power Break
Archer : Charge +1 or 2, Concentrate
Priest : Cure, Raise, Protect
Wizard : Bolt 1, 2, 3, Magic Attack UP
Thief : Steal Heart, Move +2, Secret Hunt
Time Mage : Haste, Haste 2, Demi 2 (if you're approaching a boss)
Oracle : Paralyze, Petrify, Pray Faith
Summoner : Ramuh, Leviathan
Mediator : Praise, Threaten
Lancer : Maxed Jumps. Don't bother with any others.
Ninja : Ball, Shuriken, Abandon
Samurai: Kiyomori, Kotetsu, Kikuichimonji
Calculator: CT, 5
Dancer: Slow Dance, Nameless Dance
Bard: Angel Song, Cheer Song, Nameless Song, Move +3

I usually start out with a monk, so if you got one, I usually just try to learn a couple of Punch Arts first, just for some type of closure during battles...

Next I find myself looking to learn some support tech., such as HP-UP and Counter.

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You've already been given some good ideas, so I'm gonna hit the quirky ones that people might not think about.

Squire: Move+1. Sure, it's not as good as +2/+3, but it gets the job done until you're ready to cross-train, and 200 JP isn't that much.

Archer: Arrow Guard. A little pricey, but there are several battles where it can come in handy, assuming you didn't power-level to Samurai...

Thief: Steal Weapon. Most enemies don't have Martial Arts, so a lucky swipe can turn the tides of the battle.

Knight: Weapon Break. See Thief.

Geomancer: Attack UP. (Nobody mentioned this?) In addition to doing more damage, it will increase your accuracy in breaking and stealing.

Wizard: Bolt 2. It's 2 MP cheaper than the other lv2 spells, which can be a lot early in the game.

Time Mage: Teleport. Makes Ignore Height obsolete, and adds a few panels' worth of range with reasonable success. (Teleport loses 10% success for each panel past your movement range, so you can add 2 panels with 80% success.)

Summoner: Golem. Vastly underrated spell, it absorbs physical damage equivalent to the caster's max HP. If you're going to be using this a lot, you might consider a Knight-Summoner hybrid with Half of MP.

Priest: Holy. Getting that spell early is borderline cheesy, it allows you to shred big bosses so well.

Oracle: Move-MP Up. Doesn't restore a lot of MP, but most lower-level spells aren't that expensive.

Mediator: Preach and Solution. You're best off getting an early start on increasing faith, as the odds of success usually hover around 60%. And, well, if you can't kill an enemy mage, you can at least make them less damaging.

Calculator: Damage Split. I consider this better than Counter, as it reduces the amount of damage you take (assuming you survive the initial blow) in addition to harming the attacker. It can make a low-HP character much more durable.

Ninja: Abandon. This was mentioned before, but it deserves it again. It doubles your equipment-based evasion percentages against both physical and magical, making it arguably better than Blade Grasp against mixed groups.

Samurai: Koutetsu. For much of your Samurai's early life, this spell represents the balance point between decent damage and affordability of katanas.

This post has been edited by red_beard_neo on 19th June 2006 16:37

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